This is a losing proposition. The city should know that dangling a 1.5 million carrrot is nothing compared to how much burden will be placed on the school system. NO MORE 40B's !!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I second that. Besides there is enough traffic there already. A big housing development will really screw up the traffic pattern that is already congested at busy times. Turn the lot into conservation land . . .

HOW many times do the RESIDENTS...the TAX PAYING RESIDENTS have to tell you WE DO NOT want this....enough already. Please post when the next meeting with these developers is going to be so we can show up in person to tell them since the people who represent us aren't telling them to get lost. Marlboro has more than met their fair share of affordable housing...MOVE ON to another city and take your 40B's with you!

URBAN SPRAWL! We have too much in Marlboro, just take a look a MAURO Farms on cook lane, what a waste. How much more building has to take place before Marlboro becomes Lowell or Framingham! As a life long resident I do not like the way this city has evovled. It takes 30 minutes to go from the west side by 495 to Home depot, I can drive to Andover faster. STOP the SPRAWL!

Dear City Councilor Delano,

I think you forgot to mention some other reasons why Marlborough should reconsider putting in affordable housing units here. First, with this many units, one or more residents is bound to be a drug dealer. Imagine the effect on the children! Another is bound to be a wife-batterer. Imagine how many calls that would add to the police department. We might even get a fire-starter! What if we get someone who is medically fragile? All those ambulance runs add up, you know. We might get a graffiti artist and then the whole city will be a mess! What if someone moves in who just plain likes to sue people? What if they sue over city services like snow plowing? We'll have to come up with tons of money to defend those suits! God forbid a serial murderer should move in, oh my!

Oh yeah, then there are kids with learning disabilities. Hmmm... They are just so dangerous and expensive, aren't they?

Mr. Delano, children are children. If you want to keep children out of the city, build studio and one-bedroom apartments. Meanwhile, stop pitting the residents against the kids. It is just plain ugly and ignorant. People used to say we shouldn't do this or do that because blacks might move in. Nobody gave it a second thought to say such things. This is just the same.

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We embrace all colors of people in this country - at least *I* do. Please know that it is time to embrace all kinds of children as well. Instead of bringing up the scary specter of the high costs of children - these children could be your kids or your grandkids, it only takes one head injury, one car accident, one bad hit on the playing field to shatter one's abilities - why not use your position as a bully pulpit to help change the system? Lobby our legislators to spread the costs evenly and fairly. And while we're at it, shouldn't every child get a "special" education, one that is focused on their own individual strengths and needs? People ar enot cookies made from a cookie cutter. No kid should have a cookie cutter education. There should be just one educational system, not two. All kids should simply get an education. Period.

Marion King
www.spedwatch.org

Dear City Councillor Delano,
As a Marlborough taxpayer and a special needs parent, I am deeply offended by your stance on special education children and housing. First and foremost, are you implying that affordable/low cost housing brings with it a higher percentage of special needs children? That the lower income bracket houses more special needs children than other income brackets? That certainly is an interesting position if it is indeed your position. My child was born with high functioning autism and is in the upper middle class income bracket, yet still in need of a little assistance. Some day he may be the next Bill Gates, but thankfully he wasn't born into the lower income bracket and possibly denied housing by someone who didn't think he deserved the same chance and same education as any other child. I'm not sure if your prejudice is against the less fortunate in income or the less fortunate genetically. Do tell.

By implying that special needs children suck the money out of the City and that the families of special needs children provide no benefit to the City and therefore one should not take a chance at having one move into an apartment complex is abhorrent. Not only does it pit one family against another, it shows the ignorance of the benefits of special education and belittles it as a whole. Each and every child is entitled to a free appropriate public education regardless of income or disability. To use the "threat" of a dreaded special needs child moving into an apartment as a reason to quash said apartment complex is small minded and prejudicial. When does your term expire, Mr. Delano? There are many special needs families who may take exception to your remarks.

Mr Delano ~ Your attitude revealed in your statements are sadly, all too common. Your are blatantly discriminating based upon socioeconomic class and possible educational disability. Like Mr Fitzpatrick, I too would like to know when your term expires.